Introduce the Weekend League Team With Over 1,800 Top-Flight Games
What do you boost a excellent veteran side that have won back-to-back championships, featuring a double triumph boasting thirty wins from thirty-two matches?
Bring in a group of former professionals who have performed at the top tier of club and global soccer as you aim for additional trophies.
One Greater Manchester team has an amateur veterans squad with nine former top-flight players in their active roster.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Caps
The team Veterans Over 35s are based in southern Manchester and play in the Cheshire Vets League Premier Tier.
The roster this campaign features nine former top-flight players, with a collective 1,801 Premier League matches.
The high-profile team also boasts 222 Premier League scores and 325 international caps.
They feature Papiss Cisse, who scored 37 goals in 117 games for Newcastle United after moving to them for £9m from Bundesliga club SC Freiburg in 2012.
He made his debut for Wythenshawe in their most recent home-field game against reigning title holders their rivals and scored all six goals in a six-two victory - featuring a 32-minute first-half triple.
Wythenshawe's roster for this campaign also features ex- pros such as English and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Together, the former Premier League players have claimed fifteen major honors and transferred for combined transfer sums of approximately £123m.
Household Figures and Global Stars
Ireland started turning out for the team during pre-season this season through good mate and current team player Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish player then asked other ex-pros, who all compete in a weekly nine-a-side match, to join in.
Ex- Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse, who netted 12 goals in sixty-five top-flight games for Everton and still goes to their home games, also had his debut against Collegiate OB - who are based in the city and wear an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform.
"A friend Stephen Ireland told me 'come and play, it's enjoyable'," said Niasse.
"After that he told me we were playing a team from the city and the surprise I had when I noticed them sporting Everton kits - I thought this is strange for me!
"If you still enjoy football and you feel you can still do it, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?
"The people who come and watch are pleased and to give someone's moment if they see us playing there and to pose us queries - it's more like the joy of us getting somewhere we can play, with organisation of course."
Such is the strength in depth at Wythenshawe, Niasse made his first game at defender.
"It's a bit unusual but then, I enjoy sprinting and just move inside - I'm not defending that much," he said.
"I tell my centre-back 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to keep running.
"The running is what I'm looking for. It's enjoyable."
Unreal Scenario
In addition to Cisse's six scores on his first game, Stephen Ireland has netted 8 in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit five on his debut appearance and Joleon Lescott, a defender by position, notched a triple in one match as a striker.
The team are leading of the Top Division with 3 wins from 3 and a goal difference of plus nineteen.
One opponent, 38, who features on the flank for the opposition, faced former Wigan full-back Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his young boy who Emile Heskey was.
Figueroa has played at two World Cups for his country, in as well as featuring in over two hundred Premier League games.
"It was going round like a rumor they had all these ex-Premier League stars," remarked Barrow.
"I think I was a bit awestruck playing against him to be honest.
"Also Heskey got on and he's got over 60 England appearances.
"Our side competed well for a good 20 mins but then we had a player dismissed and it was hard.
"Our group really have not ceased talking about it - I was phoning my mother and brother on the journey home.
"They were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a bunch of regular fellas.
"Now we can't wait for the second match."
'We'll Still Win the League'
The manager manages the Collegiate veterans side, who secured the Top Tier championship last season, together with Paul Maguire.
"We went one-nil ahead and had a